Dixon outlasts WOHS in volleyball in 5 sets

Dixon's Bailie Saeger (15) soars high to try for a kill against White Oak's Emily McLain during the teams' nonconference match Monday night won by the Bulldogs in five sets.

Rick Scoppe/The Daily News

By Rick Scoppe-Sports Editor/The Daily News

Published: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 10:30 AM.

DIXON – In a volleyball match filled with more turns and twists than a bag of pretzels, Dixon rallied from a 2-1 deficit after dropping the third set by 14 points to outlast White Oak – but only after seeing the Vikings force the 15-point fifth set into overtime.

White Oak faced match point five times – and four times staved off defeat. But the Bulldogs, who faced one match point as well, claimed the win on their fifth chance for an 18-16 victory in the decisive final set Monday night in the highly competitive nonconference match.

Dixon (2-3) won the first set 25-18 and then the Vikings (4-4) claimed the next two, 25-21 and 25-11, before the Bulldogs won the fourth 25-12 to force the fifth set.

“Intense,” Dixon coach Heather Moore said. “Stressed out? Yeah.”

Not that Moore was all that surprised.

“It’s typical of how we’ve been playing. When we’re on, we’re on and we’re very strong,” she said. “When we’re off, we’re off, like we’re all off. It’s not one person, it’s several people. Our passing was fantastic today. Our back row played very well. They got to balls. Serve-receive, they passed very well. So that helped out a lot.”

DIXON – In a volleyball match filled with more turns and twists than a bag of pretzels, Dixon rallied from a 2-1 deficit after dropping the third set by 14 points to outlast White Oak – but only after seeing the Vikings force the 15-point fifth set into overtime.

White Oak faced match point five times – and four times staved off defeat. But the Bulldogs, who faced one match point as well, claimed the win on their fifth chance for an 18-16 victory in the decisive final set Monday night in the highly competitive nonconference match.

Dixon (2-3) won the first set 25-18 and then the Vikings (4-4) claimed the next two, 25-21 and 25-11, before the Bulldogs won the fourth 25-12 to force the fifth set.

“Intense,” Dixon coach Heather Moore said. “Stressed out? Yeah.”

Not that Moore was all that surprised.

“It’s typical of how we’ve been playing. When we’re on, we’re on and we’re very strong,” she said. “When we’re off, we’re off, like we’re all off. It’s not one person, it’s several people. Our passing was fantastic today. Our back row played very well. They got to balls. Serve-receive, they passed very well. So that helped out a lot.”

“Pretty exciting – real exciting,” she said. “I have to admit after we won that third game I was hoping it wouldn’t be so difficult to get through the fourth game and that we’d have a little momentum. But I’m not sure what happened.

“They just sort of got us, caught us a little flat and then it sort of rolled on us. The next thing you know it was like 8-2. But I’m really proud of them because it’s always hard to play to 15. I asked them to take risks and not play safe.

“So I feel like that they worked hard and did try to hit balls and take risks. So I’m pleased with that last game. I’ll live with it. I swear I thought they showed a lot of poise out there. They didn’t look at nervous as I felt.”

While each team had its highlight moments, more points were won off errors, some of which were forced by well-placed returns by the other side. But each team was also guilty of mistakes, although the errors weren’t because of a lack of effort.

“Lots of hustling,” Moore said.

The intensity and hustle was ratcheted up even more in the fifth set.

Dixon jumped out to a 7-3 lead behind a block and two kills by Zenora Saelua and three straight mistakes by the Vikings, who then rallied to tie it at 8-8 on three consecutive errors and five in six serves by the Bulldogs.

Dixon scored six of the next eight points to go up 14-10, moving to within a point of winning the match on an ace by Cassidy O’Brien. But WOHS rallied on two kills by Emily McLain and one by Houston Etscheidt as part of a 5-0 run that included two mistakes by Dixon.

The result: WOHS led 15-14.

But a wide shot by the Vikings left the match tied, and Dixon, which led 16-15 only to see McLain tie it on a kill, put the match away on a net return by the Vikings and a shot by Kenna Silance that left the Vikings weren’t quite able to return, leaving McLain sprawled on the floor in one last desperate try to get the ball over the net.

“I hate it for them,” Wickwire said of the defeat. “But I’m proud of them. They don’t have anything to feel ashamed of. They played hard.”

Moore said the match should help her team prepare for its first league match in the East Central 2-A Conference on Thursday against Croatan. Dixon moved up from 1-A after statewide realignment.

“It’s a good match to lead us into Thursday’s game,” she said, “and it just shows that when we’re hot and we want it, we can do. We just can’t get into a lull.”